Ubuntu on the ClarionMIND MID

[DeadHP1] has been rolling and optimizing his own Ubuntu distributions for the ClarionMIND. He calls his work Mindbuntu and he’s squeezing out quite a bit of performance from the mobile Internet device. The video is running at 800×400, as well as wireless, sound, Google Earth with GPS support, and even compiz. Install the image using unetbootin to place it on a thumb drive and you’ll have Ubuntu 9.04 to go in no time.

Googled this; various versions of BIOS firmware are available. Latest will run XP and 7. Hardware hacks include more RAM, mic, and camera. Why isn’t Clarion marketing the hell out of this? At about $150 (current price anywhere) this has all manner of potential.

There was a forum on it don’t know where to find it atm but these units were going for less than $120 during black friday. I think ram is the limiting factor for windows. Either way I am still tempted to get one!

I actually own one of these. I have tried windows XP, Ubuntu, and Android 1.5. Out of the bunch I will say that Windows XP runs the best, the touchscreen driver crashes in ubuntu from time to time leaving you with no way to interact with it. It’s only got a 4 gig SSD drive in it, so SP3 is a tight squeeze. If you’re looking for more information about hacking this device http://ill-logix.com/forum/ has great info, however you have to sign up.

Several people have installed windows XP as well as windows 7 on these. The main issue is drivers. It has a host USB port so you can actually access the bios with a keyboard not that there is much to change. Default they are setup to boot from USB first so it’s fairly easy to run a live distro… if it has the right video drivers. Personally I am more interested in playing with the default OS, maybe lighten it up a bit.

I can’t seem to find it in Europe for less than 700 Euros…would be interesting otherwise.
It has already been done on TomToms. Not nearly as useful as a Atom processor would be, and rather unsupported, but if you have an old GPS receiver hanging around it may be interesting.
see http://www.opentom.org/